Oral Delivery of Insulin-Making Needles Needless‪.‬

There is a growing increase in the percentage of population having diabetes mellitus due to hereditary and environmental factors. Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM) is an autoimmune disease characterized by the destruction of the insulin secreting beta cells of the islets of langerhans of the pancreas and consequent inability to maintain blood glucose homeostasis. So diabetics must control their blood glucose levels via exogenous administration of insulin. In practice multiple injections of insulin are administered. But intermittent injections of insulin cannot duplicate the physiological pattern of insulin release in response to increase in blood glucose following food intake. So round the clock control of glycemia seems to be practically impossible. One alternative to exogenous administration of insulin is pancreatic transplantation. Although desirable, it is yet to be realized because it brings with it the formidable task of immunosuppression. On the other hand, due to knowledge explosion in biotechnology industry, a wide variety of regulatory and therapeutic proteins including insulin are abundantly and easily produced either by recombinant DNA technology or Merrifield synthesis. Hence the need of the hour is to develop ingenious and efficient methodologies for the safe, selective and effective delivery of the available macromolecule-insulin.